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ADDRESS 



PREPARED BY 



Mr. Booker T. Washington 



FOR DELIVERY 
AT 



A DINNER GIVEN BY THE MEMBERS OF 
THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB 

ON 

February 12, 1899 

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE BIRTH 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ADDRESS 



PREPARED BY 



Mr. Booker T. Washington 



FOR DELIVERY 
AT 



A DINNER GIVEN BY THE MEMBERS OF 
THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB 

ON 

February 12, 1899 

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE BIRTH 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



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ADDRESS.* 

Gentlemen : 

You ask one whom the Great Emancipator found 
a piece of property and left an American citizen to 
speak of Abraham Lincoln. My first acquaintance 
with our hero and benefactor is this : Night after night, 
before the dawn of day, on an old slave plantation in 
Virginia, I recall the form of my sain Led mother, bend- 
ing over a batch of rags that enveloped my body, on 
a dirt floor, breathing a fervent prayer to Heaven that 
" Marsa Lincoln " might succeed, and that one day 
she and I might be free ; and so, on your invitation, I 

* This address was not delivered at the Lincoln Dinner, given 
by members of the Union League Club on February 12, 1899, 
owing to the detention of Mr. Washington between New York 
and Philadelphia in a snow-bound train. It was, however, made 
two evenings afterward at a public reception extended to Mr. 
Washington by Mr. Henry C. Davis at his residence, 902 Spruce 
Street, Philadelphia. 

Mr. Washington is one of the foremost men of the colored race 
in America, and it has been deemed a matter of courtesy to him, 
and of general public interest, that his views, as prepared for 
presentation upon a great commemorative occasion in the Union 
League, should be distributed to its members. 

5 



come here to-night to celebrate with you the answer 
to those prayers. But be it far from me to revive 
the bitter memories of the past, nor would I narrow 
the work of Abraham Lincoln to the black race of this 
country ; rather would I call him the Emancipator of 
America — the liberator of the white man North, of 
the white man South; the one who, in unshackling 
the chains of the Negro, has turned loose the enslaved 
forces of nature in the South, and has knit all sections 
of our country together by the indissoluble bonds of 
commerce. To the man in the North who cherished 
hatred against the South, Lincoln brought freedom. 
To the white man who landed at Jamestown years ago, 
with hopes as bright and prospects as cheering as those 
who stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock, Lincoln, for the 
first time, gave an opportunity to breathe the air of 
unfettered freedom — a freedom from dependence on 
others' labor to the independence of self-labor ; free- 
dom to transform unused and dwarfed hands into 
skilled and productive hands ; to change labor from 
drudgery into that which is dignified and glorified ; 
to change local commerce into trade with the world ; 
to change the Negro from an ignorant man into an 
intelligent man ; to change sympathies that were local 
and narrow into love and good-will for all mankind ; 
freedom to change stagnation into growth, weakness 
into power; yea, to us all, your race and mine, 
Lincoln has been a great emancipator. Even the 



treasures of nature in our Southland, that seemed to 
hide themselves from the hand of man, have felt the 
inspiring hand of freedom ; and coal and iron and 
marble have leaped forth, and where there was once 
the overseer's lash, steam and electricity make go the 
shop, the factory, and the furnace. 

But all is not done, and it remains for us, the living, 
to finish the work that Lincoln left uncompleted. 
You of the great and prosperous North still owe a 
serious and uncompleted duty to your less fortunate 
brothers of the white race South, who suffered and 
are still suffering the consequence of American 
slavery. What was the task you asked them to per- 
form ? Returning to their destitute homes after years 
of war, to face blasted hopes, devastation, a shattered 
industrial system, you ask them to add to their bur- 
dens that of preparing in education, politics, and 
economics, in a few short years, for citizenship, four 
or five millions of former slaves. That the South, 
staggering under the burden, made blunders, that in 
some measure there has been disappointment, no one 
need be surprised. 

The four million slaves that Lincoln freed are now 
nearly ten million freemen. That which was three 
hundred years in doing can hardly be undone in 
thirty years. How can you help the South and the 
Negro in the completion of Lincoln's work? A large 
majority of the people Lincoln freed are still ignorant. 



8 

without proper food, or property, or skill, or correct 
habits — are without the requisites for intelligent and 
independent citizenship. The mere fiat of law could 
not make a dependent man independent ; it could not 
make an ignorant voter an intelligent voter ; it could 
not make one man respect another man. These 
results come by beginning at the bottom and working 
upward ; by recognizing our weakness as well as our 
strength ; by tangible evidences of our worthiness to 
occupy the highest positions. Unfortunately, too 
many of my people, because of ignorance, began at 
the top instead of the bottom ; grasped for the shadow 
instead of the substance. I come to your State and 
say the German is ignorant ; you point to the best 
paying truck-farm, operated by a German. I say the 
German is without skill ; you point to the largest 
machine-shop in your city, owned and operated by a 
German. I say the German is lazy ; you point to the 
most magnificent dwelling on your avenue, that is the 
result of the savings of the German, who began in 
poverty. I say the German can not be trusted ; you 
point to the German who is the president of the largest 
bank. I say the German is not fitted for citizen- 
ship ; you point me to the German who is the chief 
executive of your magnificent city — these are the 
kind of arguments that kill prejudice by the acre. 
When you come to Alabama and ask has the Negro 
executive ability, I want to show you, as I can at 



Tuskegee, Alabama, an institution of learning, origi- 
nated and controlled by Negroes, where there are 
more than looo students, 88 officers, 26 industries, 
42 buildings, 2267 acres of land, ^300,000 worth of 
property. When you ask has the Negro mechanical 
skill, I want to show you the finest house in a county, 
planned and constructed by a Negro. When you ask 
is the Negro lazy, I want to show you the finest farm, 
owned and operated by a Negro. When you ask is 
the Negro honest, I want to show you a Negro whose 
note is acceptable at the bank for ^5000. When 
you ask is the Negro economical, I want to show you 
a Negro with ^50,000 in the bank. When you ask is 
the Negro fit for citizenship, I want to show you a 
Negro paying taxes on a cotton factory. I want to 
show you Negroes who stand at the front in the 
affairs of State, religion, education, mechanics, com- 
merce, and household economy. " By this sign we 
shall conquer." By this method we shall so knit our 
civil and business interests into that of the white 
man's, that when he prospers we shall prosper ; when 
we fail, he fails. By this method we shall crawl up, 
pull up, or burst up. 

Yes, in answer to your proclamation. Father Abra- 
ham, we are coming, ten million strong — we are com- 
ing by the way of the college, by the way of agricul- 
ture, the shop, the factory, the trades, the household 
arts. With this foundation, if God is rio-ht and the 



lO 

Bible is true, there is no power that can permanently 
stay our progress. 

You can not graft a fifteenth century civilization into a 
twentieth century civilization by the mere performance 
of mental gymnastics. You can not convert a man by 
abusing him. The mere pushing of knowledge into 
the heads of a people, without providing a medium 
through the hands for its use, is not always wise. The 
educated man is more dangerous than the ignorant, 
idle man. An educated man standing on the corners 
of your streets with his hands in his pockets is not 
one whit more benefit to society than an ignorant man 
in the streets with his hands in his pockets. It is only 
as the black man produces something that makes the 
markets of the world dependent on him for something, 
will he secure his rightful place. 

Eight years ago I could have shown you a colored 
community in Alabama that was in debt, mortgaging 
crops ; living from hand to mouth on rented land ; pay- 
ing fifteen to forty per cent, interest on advances for 
food ; school lasting three months, taught in a wreck of 
a log cabin ; people of all ages and sexes huddled 
together, often to the number of six or eight in one 
room, and without habits of thrift or economy. A 
little more than a dozen years ago, four teachers — one 
a carpenter and blacksmith, one trained in agriculture, 
one in cookery, another in sewing, combined with 
literary education — went to this community. Go with 



II 



me to that community to-day, and I will show you a 
large modern school-house, with school lasting eight 
months ; farms well cultivated and owned by colored 
people, who live in homes with two or three rooms. 
I will show you a people almost free from debt, and a 
gin, and a store, and a wheelwright and a blacksmith 
shop operated by Negroes ; a community that has 
been revolutionized in religion, education, and industry. 
Let us multiply these communities in every part of 
the South. By this way we are coming ; by this way 
we are proving ourselves worthy of the confidence of 
our great emancipator. We mean to prove our worth, 
— not by mere talk or complaints of, or fault-finding, 
— and the rest, in a larg-e measure, we leave with vou. 
And, may I say, you do well to keep the name of 
Abraham Lincoln permanently linked with the highest 
interests of the Negro race. His was the hand, the 
brain, and the conscience that gave us the first oppor- 
tunity to make the attempt to be men instead of prop- 
erty. What Lincoln so nobly began, the philan- 
thropy and wealth of this nation, aided by our own 
efforts, should complete. The character of the father 
who has a half dozen children is determined by the 
manner that he treats all of those children. He may 
rear with care and love five of them, yet the neglect, 
the abandonment of one will serve to blight his stand- 
ing with his neiehbors. The character of this nation 
will very largely be judged by the help and encour- 



12 



agement which it renders to the ten miUions of Negroes 
who constitute so large a proportion of the American 
family. So long as these people are down, so long 
as they are fettered with ignorance, poverty, and lack 
of opportunity, so long will the reputation and char- 
acter of the whole nation suffer. 

The strueele of Abraham Lincoln up from the lowest 
poverty and ignorance to the highest usefulness gives 
hope and inspiration to the Negro. Like Lincoln, he 
is gathering strength from the ver^"^ obstacles he is 
mastering and overcoming. No race in history has 
ever grown strong and useful except as it has had to 
battle against tremendous odds ; except as it has been 
tried year by year in a crucible of fire. Like Lincoln, 
the Negro knows the meaning of the one-room cabin ; 
he knows the bed of rags and hay ; he knows what it 
is to be minus books and school-house ; he has tasted 
the lowliest poverty, but through them all he is making 
his way to the top. In the effort he is slowly but 
surely learning that the highest character of citizen- 
ship is in the possession of virtue, intelligence, sim- 
plicity, the spirit of self-denial, economy, thrift, and 
the ownership of property ; these elements of strength 
will give him that manhood without which no race can 
permanently stand, and which no adverse influence 
can take from him. 

One might as well talk of stopping the flow of the 
Mississippi River as the progress of a race that is 



13 

securing property, education, and Christian char- 
acter. 

Let us never forget that we are one people in this 
country, and that which helps the Negro helps the 
white man ; and that which hinders the Negro hinders 
the white man. Show me a Negro who hates a white 
man on account of his race, and I will show you a 
weak and undeveloped Negro. Show me a white 
man who hates a Negro on account of his race, and I 
will show you a weak and undeveloped white man. 

" The laws of changeless justice bind 
Oppressor with oppressed ; 
And close as sin and suffering joined 
We march to fate abreast." 

No member of your race in any part of this country 
can harm the weakest or meanest member of my race 
without the proudest and bluest blood in our civiliza- 
tion being degraded. 

Gentlemen, friends of humanity, raise yourselves 
above yourselves, above race, above party, above 
everything, if you can ; subserve the highest welfare 
of ten millions of people, whose interests are per- 
manently interwoven by decree of God with those of 
sixty millions of yours, and seek with me a way out of 
this great problem, which hangs over our country like 
a blighdng shadow. Find any method of escape save 
that of padently, wisely, bravely, manfully, bringing 



14 

the Southern white man and the Negro into closer 
sympathetic and friendly relations through education, 
industrial and business development, and that touch 
of high Christian sympathy which makes the whole 
world kin — find any way out of our present condition 
save this, and I am ready to follow where you lead. 

It seems to me that the highest duty which the gen- 
erous and patriotic people of this country owe to 
themselves and their country is to give willingly the 
means for the support of such institutions which are, 
without doubt, solving this serious and perplexing 
problem. If we had the means of Tuskegee alone 
we could make our work tell in a hundredfold larger 
degree in the settlement of this great question. You 
of the North have, in a large measure, the money for 
education which is to settle this problem. 

No individual or race that makes itself permanently 
felt in the building-up of the country is long left without 
proper reward or recognition. The most important 
problem that is now confronting the Negro and his 
friends is the turning of the force of his education in 
the direction that it will contribute most effectively 
to the betterment of the country and the Negro 
himself. 

I do not want to be misunderstood. I favor the 
highest and most thorough development of the 
Negro's mind. No race can accomplish anything 
until its mind is awakened. But the weak point in 



15 

the past has been, in too many cases, that there has 
been no connection between the Negro's educated 
brain and the opportunity or manner of earning his 
daily Hving. There has been almost no thought of 
connecting the educated brain with the educated 
hand. 

Industrial education is not meant to teach one to 
work so much as to teach him how to make the forces 
of nature — horse-power, steam, and electricity — work 
for him. It is the ignorant, unskilled man who toils 
from day to day with his hands, while the man with 
education and trained hands makes the forces of 
nature do work for him. The masses of the colored 
people work hard, but by reason of their want of 
skill and intelligence, some one else receives the 
profits. There is little profit in the raising of the raw 
material that enters into cotton fabrics ; the profit 
comes in the higher forms of manufacturing. By 
reason of the Negro's lack of skill he is at present 
at the bottom, so far as the matter of profit-sharing is 
concerned. At the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama 
we seek to give such an education as will put the 
Negro on the upper tier in the matter of production 
and profit-sharing. 

It is said that we will be hewers of wood and 
drawers of water, but we will be more. We will turn 
the wood into machinery ; into implements of agri- 
culture. We w^ill turn the water into steam ; into 



i6 

dairy and agricultural products, and thus knit our life 
about that of the white man in a way to make us 
realize anew that " God made from one blood all 
people to dwell and prosper on the face of the 
earth." 






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